MICHAEL Voss described himself as "filthy" following yet another Carlton fade-out on Sunday afternoon.

After kicking the first seven goals of the match against Melbourne, and leading by 43 points early in the second quarter, the Blues gave up 15 of the next 19 goals to fall by 23 points.

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It is a concerning trend for the club, which has battled poor second-half performances for some time now, and is not a new challenge that has arisen this year.

"I'm pretty filthy. We're putting ourselves in great positions, and we're handing it back," Voss said post-match.

"I don't want that to sound like I'm taking something away from Melbourne, because you've got to be able to go at the game and challenge the opposition and turn momentum your way, but we're also not helping ourselves… Today was really disappointing. I was expecting more than that, and we just didn't get the change we were after."

The contest was the key problem for the Blues after the main break, losing the clearance count by two despite leading the metric by eight at half-time, and the impact flowed onto the backline in a big way.

"There's some erratic things that we need to clean up, there's some disciplining roles that we need to continue to reinforce, but more importantly, when we're asked to hold and defend behind the ball – and that's a collective, that's not back six, that's a team system – we're not doing it for long enough," Voss said.

"We've got to put a roadblock somewhere, we've got to put a wedge against that wheel. We've got the capacity there to be able to get it done, and we're just not being able to execute for long enough… Some of that is when we're asked to defend for long periods of time, let's defend, but there's a couple of other things that are on our boot as well that we can tidy up.

"And why it's frustrating and why you're a little bit filthy is because there's all this work, and the gloss has been taken off because we can't finish games the way that we want, and continue to be able to play the way we want to play."

Voss didn't accept that fitness was the issue behind the downturn in form late in games, but refused to "discount anything", and focused on the chance of redemption in the Good Friday clash against North Melbourne.

Youngster Harry Dean is being assessed for a heavy knock to his hip/side late in the game, and Zac Williams failed to finish the game with his own rib concern from a heavy bump from Kysaiah Pickett.

Melbourne coach Steven King credited his club's belief with the comeback – the fifth greatest in its history – while also leaning on the significance of 250-game milestones for Max Gawn and Tom McDonald to get it over the line.

"For me, just immense pride in our playing group to believe in themselves and each other and have that spirit to do it for two pretty important people in the history of our footy club," King said.

"I did reference (the milestones) at three-quarter time and asked the boys to display a little bit of some character traits that (Gawn and McDonald) have demonstrated for such a long time in the game. So, I'm super happy for those guys."

King also flagged Paddy Cross for debuting in a "pretty memorable" game, and praised the work of senior leader Jake Lever in defence late in the piece.

But it was Pickett and Gawn, who led the comeback, creating a dynamic midfield performance in the second half.

"Half-time, (Pickett) was probably not down, but just missed some targets and he could easily have thought it's not his day, but for what he did in the second half, in that last quarter, that was pretty special. He played midfield the whole game, (I) think it's the first time he's cracked 30 possessions… some of his defensive efforts to lock that ball in our front half and tackle with ferocity that we know he does, it was pretty motivating and inspiring for his teammates," King said.

"Max is Max. His last quarter was insane."

King confirmed that recruit Changkuoth Jiath suffered a calf injury, which saw him miss the second-half comeback, and will undergo scans in the coming days, while Trent Rivers – who was dropped for the match for team balance – is "dealing with something physically".